


ballet-shaped love note

by feralphoenix



Category: Yggdra Union
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>World, bewitch me 'til the end of the dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ballet-shaped love note

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> _(things need not have happened to be true_ – waiting for forever and a day)

She’s doing laps in the pool when Elena gets in, and her breaststroke is flawless. She doesn’t push off the wall to turn around, but slows to a stop and twists her body carefully, treading water. Her hair’s pulled into a chignon bun that lends maturity to her face, and she’s got the powerfully muscled shoulders and arms of an Olympian.

Elena kneels down next to the pool, readily. They warned her when she filled out the volunteer form that this job would get her wet, and so she came in a pair of old jeans and a big white T-shirt with the local gym’s logo on the front. Her ID card in its plastic holder is clipped to her belt loop.

“Hi!” says the girl, paddling over and wrapping both arms over the long cord of buoys. She’s grinning. There’s a little gap between her two front teeth and she’s got an overbite; there’s a freckle near where her eyebrow tapers off. Her eyes are big and the very color of forget-me-nots. “Can we start then? I want to hurry up and get to free swim after.”

Elena smiles. It feels like it comes out a little tense. “I think we should wait for the doctor. She’ll be along soon, and I don’t have enough qualifications to actually oversee this on my own. Besides,” she says, and tucks her hair behind her ear: “I’m not as good a swimmer as you are.”

The girl giggles. “Aww, that’s too bad. Then, do you want to talk about stuff ‘til she gets here? What do you like to do?”

She relaxes. It would be more difficult not to. “I don’t have many hobbies, but—volunteering, I guess?” Elena holds out her hands a little self-deprecatingly, inviting a laugh; the girl in the pool does, splashing her hands in the water a little.

“Do you like books? I have a big one with fairy tales that’s my favorite! I like the Little Mermaid the best.”

Elena can’t help but smile; she can’t imagine anything else for a person who seems so at home in the water. “You looked a little like one—a mermaid, I mean, when you were doing laps.”

The girl sticks out her tongue. “Everybody says that. I like it ‘cause there’s no villain.”

Elena’s knees are starting to hurt against the tile, so she shifts to sit down, putting her bare feet over the side so that her heels just touch the water. It’s warm, and when the little waves dip it starts to feel cold. “I thought the witch was supposed to be the bad guy?”

The girl shakes her head. “No, that’s just in the Disney movie. I liked the songs, but Disney thinks every movie needs a bad guy.” She rolls her eyes, long-suffering. “In the original version, everybody just does their best. The witch helps the mermaid and her sisters. The mermaid wants the prince to be happy, the prince wants to be with someone he loves, and the prince’s dad wants the best for the country. It’s a nice fairy tale. That’s why even though she turns into sea foam at the end, she gets to be a zephyr instead.”

“You know a lot about it.”

“Yeah, my class did reports on fairy tales in fifth grade,” says the girl. She ducks under the water’s surface, then pops up again in the next lane, holding onto the buoys and floating mostly on her front. “My sister helped me research. She said she didn’t know most of that. She said if I ever got in trouble, she’d have no problem cutting off all her hair to give to a sea witch to help me. She said she’d go ahead and shave her whole head bald!”

She’s laughing, but Elena’s remembering the medical file she looked at before actually coming to help record data for this therapy session, the notes about the crash and the fire.

“But my sister wasn’t like the little mermaid’s sisters,” the girl goes on. “She’s more like the little mermaid herself.” She pauses, lifts a hand to her chin. “I wonder if the little mermaid had any little sisters?”

It’s a little much to pose like that while balancing on the buoy line, and so the girl overbalances with a yelp and a splash, sending her wasted legs flailing through the air. She rights herself before Elena’s heart has finished leaping into her throat, spitting out water and giggling at her own folly.

Before she can think of anything to say, she hears the door open behind her, and the girl in the pool is proclaiming “Oh good!” and turning a huge gap-toothed grin on Elena.

“You should see if they’ll let you stay for longer than just therapy,” she says thoughtfully. “I can teach you how to swim and stuff.”


End file.
